


patience, kiddo

by tvxq



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: M/M, ft. sm ent and all of their pets, industry analysis, non-au, post-2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-08-28
Packaged: 2018-08-11 13:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7894624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tvxq/pseuds/tvxq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>he does the responsible thing. sehun gets a dog.</p>
            </blockquote>





	patience, kiddo

**Author's Note:**

> • basically an industry meta around zitao’s lawsuit and stuff that followed. non au. set post april '15   
>  • w: super light ment of eating disorders, dissassociation etc.

jongin’s dogs could replace the sun. jjanggu, monggu, jjangah, all three an orchestra of noise whenever sehun crashes at jongin’s place in apujeong. taemin, too, with his feet on the table and the kind of easy background yelling that comes with the pair of them in any given environment together.

“yah, feet off, tae.” jongin scowls, arms full of takeout. it’s early july, summer’s rolling by to make way for a chilly autumn and sehun thinks if he sees chanyeol in another tank top, he’s going to punch him. dorm life is harder in the heat, because it’s nine boys squabbling over k-bbq and shower time and the next thing you know, baekhyun’s eaten all of your shaved ice you had hidden away from manager-hyung and you decide that this is it and find yourself at the residence of kim jongin.

janggu, monggu, jjangah. taemin-sunbaenim, too, grinning from ear to ear when jongin falls down onto the sofa beside him in a brilliant flash of disappointment.

“feet.” jongin snaps, shoving taemin once he’s placed the bibimbap on the table. “ _off_.” sehun wants to laugh, because no matter how much he crinkles his forehead, jongin couldn’t be stern if he tried.

taemin shoots sehun a waggly-eyebrows look and does as he’s told. janggu pads over at the smell of pork belly and settles politely beside sehun. it’s april, 2015 and sehun’s hands seek solace in the warmth of dog-fur. janggu’s tongue hangs out of her mouth in a pseudo satisfied dog grin and sehun smiles quietly in the corner of jongin’s lounge room.

“so how’s dorm life rookie?” taemin asks, turning to sehun, but not really demanding an answer. he and jongin do that thing where they can talk without actually talking, and sehun would usually care, but he’s content on the floor, crosslegged next to the dogs. he should reach up and grab some dinner, but there’s the unspoken rule that sehun will only throw it up. his insides have been a hurricane for a few weeks, so.

he shrugs, and monggu pads over as well, then, on sehun’s other side. he reaches across to scratch underneath monggu’s ears, but wonders what he will do when jjangah eventually wanders over, because he only has two hands.

“the same.” sehun says, all closed off and quiet and jongin has an impatient line of confusion between his eyebrows.

“taemin-ah’s staying for a few days for his schedule break. you can crash here for a bit.” jongin offers, and it’s not like sehun doesn’t have anywhere to go, he just thinks that maybe joonmyun’s sent passive-angry texts telling everybody to _look after sehun! don’t leave him alone! he can’t look after himself!_ he loves joonmyun, really, but sehun’s become aquatinted to quiet, now and people’s hands on his shoulders isn’t something he really wants.

“no thanks, hyung,” sehun says, wrinkling his nose, attempting to play it off with humour. “you both can’t cook ramen to save your lives.”

jongin has the gal to look offended, but taemin-sunbae knows better. sehun knows he does, and there’s something in the way he flicks a piece of fried egg at sehun’s jeans.

“brat.” taemin says, huffing, and jongin goes on to say something about the pains of late night choreo with sm’s newest dance hyung and taemin says something equally sharp and sehun runs his hands along monggu’s back and tries to fold himself away from everything, for a bit.

 

/

 

it gets a little easier, after that.

( _spoiler: it does not_ )

 

/

 

“sehun, you haven’t moved in like, a day.” joonmyun says, and he’s flinging a pillow across the room to fall flatly on the bed beside sehun. it doesn’t even hit him, and sehun’s never been so disappointed to have a leader that cannot even calculate the correct trajectory of pillow-tossing. disgraceful.

“i’m tired.” he says, into the bed. joonmyun’s unrelenting in his storming over. their bedroom is all mess and no organisation. sehun has many excuses. _we just finished promotions for a repackage none of us had the effort for! we have a world tour soon! i stayed up all night reading articles on naver about my best friend’s departure from our band! leave me alone!_

“i’ll take your phone off you again.” joonmyun warns, because even though he was out with ryeowook hyung all night, he knows exactly what sehun was doing. sehun pretty much hates joonmyun.

“hyung, leave me alone.” he says, a little louder, to the sheets.

“you’re lucky we’re free for a week, brat. but concert promotions kick back in soon and you’re not allowed to leave your socks on the floor again.”

joonmyun takes a delicate seat on the edge of their bed and sehun squirms into the sheets some more. not-moving sounds preferable, right now. not moving sounds great.

“hey.” joonmyun murmurs, a steady hand coming up to pat sehun on the leg. he fell asleep in his jeans, again, and no doubt joonmyun will nag and nag and nag.

“those are your socks.” sehun claims pissily, and jerks his leg away. joonmyun persists, though, and sehun can begin to feel hot tears form in the corner of his eyes when joonmyun shuffles up the bed. his hand is soft in sehun’s hair, then, and he tries not to let his shoulders shake.

“go away, hyung.” sehun says, hoarse, and the sound joonmyun makes is pitiful.

“oh, sehunnie.” he breathes, after a whine-groan of something akin to understanding. joonmyun’s hand’s combing through his hair, like he can smooth out the bumps of sehun’s sadness with a steady hand. like he can stop anything - like he can turn back time. back to when they were all a little bit happier.

sehun laughs bitterly to himself underneath the dovet. zitao was the one with the time powers. he laughs while he sobs, and it doesn’t take long for joonmyun to crack, too. sehun tries not to be selfish in his mourning, because joonmyun lost yifan-hyung, and lu-hyung and joonmyun lost zitao too.

“sehunnie.” joonmyun says again, fingers carding through sehun’s hair. it’s not soft, his hair. bleached too many times too count, that one time a coordi said rainbow hair and then the aftermath, and sehun thinks about zitao’s laughter across from the inkigayo green room and the makeup brush sehun had tossed at his head because shut up tao! i didn’t choose this!

“i’m alright hyung.” sehun promises, which is a lie.

he closes his eyes, then, because sehun doesn’t have the effort to stop crying into the mattress and it’s easier to pretend he’s okay when he focuses on joonmyun’s hands in his hair. methodical. he doesn’t ask if joonmyun is crying, but sehun ends up half in his lap with joonmyun’s back ramrod against the wall and the brief sounds of activity when chanyeol and jongdae get back from sukira.

it’s static, after that. joonmyun’s hands, static, the smell of laundry soap and calvin klein fragrance. static. joonmyun. static and joonmyun and then sehun’s sleeping and he’s dreaming and it’s like this: _zitaozitaozitao,_ until he wakes up.

 

/

 

back when tvxq was dbsk and not jyj, trainee-sehun used to wander up to the studios upstairs, where the sunbaes would practise and sit down with junsu-subaenim’s cats. about three of them, brought up from the dorm, for ‘moral support’.

jaejoong’s cat often accompanied them too, when they were in the middle of promotional preparation and dance practise was an overnight affair and jaejoong allegedly did not trust their managers to feet his cat. jiji was a delicate cat, but friendly, and jongin’s love for watching his sunbaes dance included dragging sehun up by the wrist to sit in on their performances, jongin’s beautiful exhaustive eyes following every movement and dreaming, thinking, wanting.

sehun, then, less involved. jiji in his lap, jaejoong was so scary when he danced, because he was the top of the food chain then and sehun and jongin were trainees with no time on their hands, all the way at the bottom.

“i’m a dog person.” jongin had been saying, nose wrinkled, before he closed his mouth promptly at jaejoong’s approach, a towel slung around his shoulders.

“she’s a bit fussy, but if you scratch her underneath the chin, she purrs heaps.” he’d said, surprising the pair of them. jongin looked like he might faint, and sehun wondered if he was secretly running a cassiopeia fansite, before his fingers dug into sehun’s sleeve desperately.

sehun bowed as much as he could with a cat in his lap, and jongin followed suit, kicked into silence.

“thank you, sunbaemin.” sehun murmured quietly, bobbing his head. jaejoong ruffled his hair and winked briefly like he knew that jongin would run off and tell chanyeol about the whole thing and neither of them would be believed in the slightest.

the upper floor of dong bang shin ki’s practices room was always sme’s cat paradise. by the time zitao is a trainee, though, _dong bang shi ki_ is _tong vfang xien qi_ and changmin’s eyebrows are a force to be reckoned with and dance king u-know yunho doesn’t exactly have the patience for big-headed trainees sneaking around weeks before debut.

“and that’s where kim jaejoong told me that i could be anything i wanted to.” sehun lies, in a conspiratorial whisper, to zitao, pointing at cloud studio three with big wide eyes and a bad haircut.

zitao’s eyes widen too, because, no, that can’t be true, and sehun’s smug grin in their hiding spot is the only thing he lets zitao see.

“i’m serious - ask jongin.” he says, and then tvxq’s manager spots them creeping around dance studios they shouldn’t be in and calls both of their names across the hallway. no doubt manager lee hyung will be pleased. sehun takes zitao’s warm hand within his own and he pulls, and they dash toward the stairs when the manager takes the elevator and zitao grins at the challenge. they’re laughing and dodging pr-noonas and sehun thinks it’s his what he remembers most when he thinks about being a trainee.

 

/

 

cleaning up zitao’s room is a clinical affair. like surgery. only sehun’s teachers had told him he probably wouldn’t make it in the medical industry because he was too busy dancing to make time for a doctor’s degree. which made sense.

pulling the sheets off of zitao’s mattress the morning after the ceo had told them. it was ritualistic, nearly. two members had already left; they’d done it all before.

empty, sanitise, forget. baekhyun nearly suggested a gaming room, because league was a thing and minseok nearly looked excited, but sehun could see the thin lines of impatience within joonmyun’s eyebrows as he said, maybe, ask hyung, and baekhyun’s hand on joonmyun’s waist briefly when he said don’t worry about it. really hyung. don’t worry.

sehun with his arms folded in on himself, had not let himself be touched, for the full week after the news. after zitao had boarded a flight to los angeles for treatment. he’d had his phone taken off of him, per the ceo’s request. sns, wiped of zitao. joonmyun, deleting his number from every phone in the building. quietly determined to make things okay.

and then it was promotions, and sehun still walks past zitao’s old room and thinks about the smell of qingdao tea leaves and chinese allspice and then it’s static, again.

 

/

 

it’s kibum-hyung who tells him to get a dog. their exo’luxion tour kicks off in two days and he’s there with the coordis for the final stages of dress rehearsal. commes des and garçons follow along, small balls of happiness backstage.

kibum hands the leash over to a pd, but sehun bows 90 degrees and asks his sunbae if he can take them for a walk. dogs tend to make his hands stop shaking and he’s since decided that animals are much better then other people. it’s been two months and everybody’s moved on. sehun feels rather stuck, but commes des comes up and licks at his hand when he leans down, and he looks up at his sunbae with pleading eyes.

kibum grins around the straw between his lips and waves his hand decadently, car keys still ringing with his fingers.

“course you can sehun-ah. watch out, though, garçons has been misbehaving.” he looks down a little sternly, and kibum-hyung is the kind of person that talks to his dogs like they’re people, and sehun can remember joonmyun and jinki-sunbae talking about kibum being the first of the group to move out and that lonely way he called them all up to nag. and then no more talk of kibum being lonely, then, because he’d bought two puppies and shinee’s two managers were absolutely sick of poodles on the scene of music videos.

“thanks hyung.” sehun says, trying not to smile, chewing the inside of his lip. his face is heavy with stage-makeup and the whole ensemble, but it’s kind of refreshing to stand away from the rest of them as minseok and kyungsoo play-fight and jongdae and baekhyun have a _i-can-yell-into-my-mic-loudly-too-fight._

“it’s all good.” kibum says, and places his bubble tea on the table, rolling his shoulders with his coat on, handing sehun the leashes easily.

“you have to tell your manager you’re leaving?” kibum asks, bag on the table now, and sehun looks back at his manager-hyung talking to one of the pds about something and joonmyun trying to subdue the mess that is chanyeol, baekhyun and jongdae all together.

“probably.” sehun sighs, but kibum gives him a wink that reminds sehun all too much of kim jaejoong, barely ten years ago, and kibum pushes himself up and wanders over to the fire escape.

“c’mon, we don’t have to tell.” he says, and sehun’s never been more thankful for a breath of fresh air in his life. kibum is somehow loud and quiet at the same time as he bitches about the smell of smoke and complains about the noise of concert prep and how glad he is to have time off for a change, when the company can finally stop using shinee as a cover-up for zitao’s lawsuit, and exo can finally come back into the spotlight.

sehun is quiet for the most part, because he’s always been good at nodding blankly and listening intently. he’s only loud when he’s around chanyeol, who transfers his loudness like an airborne virus. it’s he and kibum along the sidewalk, sunglasses on and kibum’s dogs bouncing around patiently.

“hey, hoobae,” kibum bumps his shoulder. “how’re you holding up?” it’s unexpected, because kibum has just been talking about something to do with the new cafe at coex and suddenly the attention is all on him.

“uh…fine?” sehun swallows, hesitant, looking down at commes des when he can’t meet kibum’s eyes.

“sure.” kibum snorts.

they’re quiet for a bit, until kibum decides that they should sit down instead, and he lets commes des and garçons bumble around a tiny little park across the street from a string of takeout stores that are closed during the day. it’s a gentle kind of quiet, and sehun sits down on the bench across from the dogs with a set to his shoulders. tense, like he’s been slumped down for too long.

kibum sits too, but he eyes sehun with something careful, there.

“it’s alright to not be alright.” he says, and sehun looks at him for a second, wondering if kibum wants him to say something or to just listen. he nods, briefly, and kibum breathes out. “once you get to my age, eight years of industry bullshit - you start to get used to it. but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t fucking suck.”

he’s never heard kibum swear, but minseok has, because they go drinking together sometimes but sehun would prefer to stay home and play on his ipad with kyungsoo babbling on about cooking recipes in the background.

“and it’s okay, to miss him.”

that makes sehun stiffen, some. he goes tenser then he thinks is possible, bristling at the mention of zitao, even in passing. he hopes kibum knows how he feels.

kibum doesn’t touch him. nobody touches him, anymore. except joonmyun, when they fall asleep on seperate sides of the bed and sehun wakes up with crusted tears down his face and his head tucked into the crook of joonmyun’s neck delicately. he sniffles.

“we’ve never had any members leave, but we were all close with sulli - we all knew ‘sica. other kibum - kris, lu han,” kibum says, lightly. “they come and they go and that’s life.” he says, and sehun wants to hit him, all of a sudden.

just punch him in the side of the jaw because it’s so so unfair and he wants to yell and scream and run around in the rain because it’s _not fair, not of this is ever going to be fair. i lost my best friend,_ he wants to yell _, and i miss him so so much i think i’m going to break._

he doesn’t do any of that, though, because he’s oh sehun and he’ll save the breakdowns for later - in the bathroom of mcountdown, because he’s got to learn to rap lines in chinese now and nobody teaches mandarin like zitao teaches mandarin.

he inhales.

“yeah.” sehun says, with wet lips. “yeah.” he feels like he’s been sitting here for longer then he has and it’s the slow descent into skipping time that happens sometimes, like sehun is on auto pilot, like some days, he’ll be standing on stage and by the time he’s come to, he’s danced through two songs separately and the pd’s tell him to work on his focus. it’s hard, to keep his head afloat, and sehun swallows when he realises where he is.

kibum nudges his shoulder again. “we better head back.”

and commes des pads up to sehun’s knee and licks at the rip there with tiny-puppy eyes and sehun pats him behind the ears with little effort and thinks oh, okay.

kibum, then, helping him stand and making up excuses to manager-hyung with the charisma that idols can only dream of, and garçon’s tiny footsteps against the scratchy-matte-black of the stage.

“you should get one,” kibum says, after sehun’s been reprimanded for leaving without asking, even though kibum’s taken most of the blame, he knows joonmyun knows better, because sehun’s never really listened to joonmyun at all.

“sunbae?” he says, not really hearing kibum speak at all, while the coordi-re-fits his in-ear and frowns disapprovingly at the two dogs running circles around sehun’s legs.

“a dog. you should get one.” kibum grins his cat-like smile, tips his head and somebody calls his name before he can elaborate. “just a thought.” he murmurs, and he waves with his fingers, not really looking at sehun anymore, hoisting commes des and garçons along with him as he ducks back into wardrobe and sehun’s alone, again.

the coordi pats his shoulder. “all done.” she says loudly, and he nods, and he nods and he stands up and he thinks until he goes numb, again, and then there’s music and he’s dancing, all over again.

 

/

 

it’s hard to think about dog-purchasing when you’re on a world tour.

sehun tries, though. exo planet 2 - the exo’luxion is planned to stop 39 times in asia - 5 times in north america. on the flight to bangkok - their last tour before china, yixing’s swaps tickets with kyungsoo and sidles up next to sehun in row ff - seat 34b.

“hey, hyung.” sehun says softly, pulling out an earphone. it’s polite. yixing will say something about the weather, joonmyun will give them all a mini-pep talk, manager-hyung will tell them to turn their phones off and then sehun will go back to sleep.

he can see yixing’s dimples when he talks. “the sky’s clear today.” he says, with something like great admiration for the world, in his voice. yixing is always so happy. not in-your-face joy, like chanyeol. just happy. content.

yixing, who still calls lu han and yixing, who stays late to help rookies with dance. sehun nods along in agreement, swinging the earphone around his fingers gently, as joonmyun starts talking.

he thinks yixing will perk up and listen to joonmyun, but he looks at sehun for a while before he pulls up his phone. opens kakao and sends a bunch of numbers to sehun’s private line. sehun’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and he blinks.

“hyung?”

“joonmyun’s gonna kill me.” yixing says quietly. he gives sehun a dimple-smile, and he looks so sad, for a change. “it’s taozi’s new phone number.”

that makes sehun’s stomach drop.

“hyung?” he says again, whispering, because his throat’s all closed up and joonmyun’s still going on about working hard and it’s the same speech every time, every single time he hears the same thing. yixing’s hand rests on his knee, a steady weight.

“you can’t call on the flight, and we have rehearsal as soon as we land. that gives you some time to think.” yixing says, a smooth, careful voice. “we go to bejing in nearly month.”

sehun’s hands are shaking, then, and joonmyun finishes up with ‘we are one’ in a sarcastic voice, before jongdae launches some comment about hot sauce and manager hyung is trying to calm the whole charade down. sehun breathes, in, then out. yixing shakes his knee softly.

“hey, hey. calm down. it’s alright, okay? you have time.”

sehun’s throat’s closed up, so he nods. yixing’s hand doesn’t move from his knee, though, for the whole flight, and he falls asleep with his head against his hyung’s shoulder. yixing sings, under his breath, in mandarin, and the music cycling through his headphones is quiet.

yixing’s hand stays on the small of his back, even after they’re at the hotel, and yixing wanders over to his room with the manager and joonmyun tugs sehun into their twin-share. dimple smile, again, and sehun walks into the bathroom when he’s alone and tries to throw up the contents of an empty stomach.

“hey, brat - hurry up, manager’s leaving.” joonmyun knocks twice before he goes to open the door. the panic rises in his voice, when he figures it’s locked.

“sehun - _sehun_!“ the handle shakes rapidly then, and sehun barely has time to stand up and wipe his mouth before he thinks joonmyun might kick the door down. he unlocks it, and stands, attempting to look somewhat put together.

“seh - jesus _christ._ ” joonmyun says, as soon as he opens the door, hands running up and down sehun’s shoulders and cupping his face. he feels like a piece of glass, like this. joonmyun’s only looking after him. he bats hyung’s hands away, lip curling, attempting to play it off as nonchalance.

“sorry hyung, i forgot the doors locked. force of habit.” he rubs the back of his neck, and joonmyun’s never looked so skeptical.

but they have a concert to be at, so he settles for that, and curls his fingers around sehun’s wrist and doesn’t let go until they’re in the minivan, and joonmyun doesn’t have to look over his shoulder to see if sehun’s still trailing behind.

 

/

 

a week before they leave for beijing, a heavy set cloud settles over seoul, but it does not rain. the sky is dark, but minseok and sehun both still pull on hoodies, masks and sunglasses. the shelter is in lower hapjeong, and they can’t really risk it. sehun’s too tired to deal with dispatch, anyway.

“thanks for coming, hyung.” sehun says to minseok, who he can barely see behind sunglasses. minseok grins though, and he bounces around for a bit before they turn down right past a noraebang and down to where the animal shelter is.

the same place zhou mi had bought his cat, jongdae had mentioned something about in when he looked over sehun’s shoulder on the communal laptop.

( _“yo, that’s not porn—wait, unless, you’re into—“_

_“hyung, that’s fucking disgusting. i want to buy a puppy.”_

_“oh. oh. cool.”_ )

minseok says ‘it’s no big deal’ without really saying it at all, and as soon as they walk into the store, he bounces over to the animals as soon as he sees them.

dogs cure everything, sehun thinks, because cats are good too, but chanyeol’s scared of cats and cats make him think about how sharp zitao’s eyes are.

he swallows when he wanders up to the counter. he doesn’t bother with his sunglasses, because the girl behind the desk looks about his age, and there’s no mistaking the picture of baekhyun-hyung on the wallpaper of her computer. he bites his lip.

“good morning, how can i help?” she asks, and her voice wavers a little, like she recognises him. _what the hell,_ he thinks, slipping his sunglasses off.

“i’d like to look at some puppies.”

 

/

 

 

when sehun looks at china - tiny, tiny china from the window of the plane, he thinks about the hotel he and zitao has stayed at for a night, in xi’an, because it was going to take too long by cab to get onto the freeway, and there was no way that sehun was driving in five lane traffic to qingdao and they’d bitched about it for a while, before zitao had given up.

they’d checked into the xi’an hilton on some unspeakable chinese name that sehun couldn’t even read, on the street sign. hotel rooms were a second home, to an idol. they had a chinese dorm, but that was in bejing and the room service wasn’t nearly so nice when zitao batted his pretty little eyelashes and said “penthouse please” in perfect english.

china’s loud, so loud. it’s quieter, up here, on the top floor, but it’s still so loud. sehun can’t see the stars, but he can see planes, landing and taking off, and even a helicopter. they’ll have to do.

“we should go to kyoto,” zitao mumbles, into sehun’s neck when they’re nearly asleep. he kinda wants to punch him in his pretty chinese mouth, because he was so so close to falling asleep.

sehun resists the urge.

“mhfggg,” he says, in response. zitao’s lips on his neck, they’re sleeping in their jeans, like they’re kids again.

“kyoto is so pretty at night,” zitao whispers, and sehun shifts.

“alright,” he yawns, “we’ll go to kyoto.”

it’s how they make most of their decisions. sehun nuzzles a little closer and thinks that maybe this, is not a bad thing.

 

/

 

three floors up and two doors down. sehun breathes in, and he dials the number. straight from yixing’s message. he hadn’t even saved it to his phone, yet.

it dials twice, and he hangs up. china is so cold.

sehun’s standing on the streets of bejing, and zitao’s apartment in the city is all the way up. the light is on, he knows this because yixing was talking to lu-hyung last night about it, and they’d met up for bubble tea. nobody else knew, because they didn’t have a zitao to teach them mandarin as clearly as they’d like. minseok maybe, but even then.

his phone buzzes, and it’s zitao’s number.

[ from: unknown ] 9:21pm  
_who is this?_

he understands the hanja fairly well. sehun bites his lip. if he calls again, he’s probably going to get blocked. he’s had it before, the sasaengs. sehun’s number has changed more then his wardrobe, probably. it’s not exactly a science.

he doesn’t call again. bejing is so cold. sehun tucks his hands into his pockets and wanders back to the hotel. it’s dark, he doesn’t need sunglasses. he puts them on, anyway, wondering if zitao would recognise him like this.

 

/

 

he names the dog vivi. he’s a little shit, though, and sehun loves him to pieces.

 

/

 

he’s in china a full two months later. three floors up and two doors down it’s not so cold, but it’s always cold at night, he thinks, hands in his pockets. pulling out his phone is another affair.

he calls, again. the number is saved, now. he’s grown patient. learnt it. it’s an art. vivi teaches him more then ‘don’t buy a dog whatever you do’. he goes to the cinemas with joonmyun, practised some, ate some, slept some. patience. yixing had been on a skype call with luhan’s parents when sehun had left.

“don’t tell joonmyun.” sehun had said. yixing had been his greatest ally.

sehun calls again. it dials twice, and he doesn’t hang up. he holds his breath and waits. the light is still on, up there, and sehun wonders if it’s always going to be like this.

“hello?” zitao answers. his mandarin is so sharp. sehun swallows a breath. “hello?”

“hi-hey.” he stumbles, in chinese. there’s a little gasp, then.

“who is this?”

sehun swallows the inane urge to cry. “i can’t remember how to say it’s me in chinese.” he mumbles in korean, and zitao laughs self-depreciatingly for a moment. there’s tears in sehun’s eyes now, and he can hear the tears in zitao’s laugh when he speaks.

“ _zhe shi wo_.” zitao says, “ _shi wo_.” zitao speaking mandarin again is something he never thought he’d be able to hear. sehun sniffles and wipes his eyes. it’s embarrassing, really.

“ _shi wo_.” he says then, in his best mandarin, and it’s getting better because who else is going to rap in the exo-m songs? it’s a bitter little thought, then.

“where are you?” zitao asks, and sehun thinks he can hear him moving around. getting up. come to me, sehun wants to say, i’m right outside. he doesn’t, though.

“i’m on the street.”

“the street?”

“look outside.” sehun sniffles, and he’s crying in earnest now. there’s a shadow moving in the apartment, three floors up and two doors down. “trust me.”

the curtains, pushed aside. sehun holds in a breath and waves, for a moment. he has to put his hands back, though, because it’s cold and his fingers are a precious commodity.

“oh,” zitao breathes, over the line. “oh sehunnie.” he’s crying too. why are they like this?

“hey.” sehun says, “so you gonna let me, in or what?”

zitao laugh-cries. sehun laugh-cries too.

“yeah, yeah. a second though.” he says, and sehun can hear his footsteps bounce around the apartment. sehun’s chest tightens for a long time, and his hands shake where they stay. he’s so cold, but zitao’s voice is so warm in his ear. curling.

“i’ll wait here, for you.” sehun murmurs. patience. vivi’s taught him that much.

“yeah, alright.” zitao says. “yeah.”

sehun stuffs the phone in his pockets, and he stands still. his hands are getting a little warmer. maybe it will snow, this year. who knows.

he sees zitao by the door though, five minutes later, and he thinks that maybe anything is possible.

**Author's Note:**

> • this was written because im sad about taohun and zitao owned candy before sehun had vivi and im sAD that they didn’t raise their kids together   
>  • the amount of reasarch i did into sm artists and their pets is…exhasting…im tired dogs r the best though ok pets r the best   
>  • thanks a whole Seven to h for the chinese help even tho....nothing rlly got solved...its all good ilu


End file.
